✍ Scribed by Barbara Early
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
**Just in time for the holidays, fans of Leslie Meier and Vicki Delany are going to want to pick up the charming third installment in Barbara Early’s Vintage Toy Shop mysteries.
It’s all fun and games with toyshop owner Liz McCall until deadly secrets are unwrapped upon the eve of the holidays. **
Who knew? Liz McCall is not thrilled when her boyfriend Police Chief Ken Young introduces her to his estranged wife Marya. The model-quality Russian immigrant, back in East Aurora to rekindle their romance, will be working as a hairstylist at the barber shop next door to Well Played, the toyshop Liz manages for her dad. When Marya offers to help with the shop’s doll rehab project, Liz can’t help but offer up only a weak smile, but her secret hesitations are for naught when Marya’s body is discovered in the barber shop with a hair dryer cord wrapped around her neck.
Liz’s dad, retired from the police force, is asked to investigate since Ken is the prime suspect.The whole town is abuzz with the scandal and Liz has a few questions of her own, wanting nothing more than to forget the loud argument she overheard between Marya and Ken the night before. There could have been other motives… Was Marya going to cut into a competing hairstylist business? Who is the bumbling private investigator hanging around and why won’t he explain himself?
All eyes are on Liz, including those of an odd matryoshka doll in the shop which seems to move of its own accord, to unravel this entertaining riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma that is Death of a Russian Doll , the third jolly Vintage Toy Shop mystery from Barbara Early.
**
Praise for Death of a Russian Doll :
"Appealing... This quick and easy cozy is as comfy as its narrator’s well-worn Scooby-Doo pajamas."
― Publishers Weekly
“A down-to-earth heroine faces plenty of complications in her attempt to solve a crime that hits far too close to home.”
― Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Murder on the Toy Town Express :
"Worth a read...droll."
―Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
“Well-drawn characters and an intriguing plot will keep cozy fans turning the pages.”
― Publishers Weekly
"An especially enjoyable cozy for lovers of vintage toys and surprise endings."
― Kirkus Reviews
“Share with readers who enjoy mysteries with women business owners like Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen or Jane K. Cleland’s Josie Prescott.”
― Booklist
“Charming and surprising, with a thrilling twist, humor, and heart.”
― San Francisco Book Review
**Praise for Death of a Toy Soldier :
**“Delightful… The cozy hometown setting and a lovable cast of characters add to the story’s charm.”
― Kate Carlisle, New York Times bestselling author of the Bibliophile mysteries
“An absolutely delightful cozy mystery.”
―Julie Hyzy, New York Times bestselling author of the Manor House mysteries
Barbara Early earned an engineering degree, but after four years of doing nothing but math, developed a sudden allergy to the subject and decided to choose another occupation. Before she settled on murdering fictional people, she was a secretary, a school teacher, a pastor's wife, and an amateur puppeteer. After several years living elsewhere, she and her husband moved back to her native Western New York State, where she enjoys cooking, crafts, classic movies and campy seventies television, board games, and posting pictures of her four cats on Facebook. This is her fourth mystery, and the third in her Vintage Toyshop series.
FICTION -- Mystery & Detective -- Women Sleuths
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